


someone kindle my heart, cos she's burning me out

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night out in Almeria, Spain; missed chances, false hopes, and a new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	someone kindle my heart, cos she's burning me out

**Author's Note:**

> I've invented two people - "Jem" and "Tessa" - because I didn't really want to refer to actual past or present relationships. They're fictional to all intents and purposes, at least in this story, anyway.

He takes her by the hand and twirls her along the street, her heart spinning in circles along with her flailing limbs and tumbling hair.  When they come to a stop, breathless, they’re half a block away from the club they’ve just left, and the night is cold against the back of his neck. Their hands stay intertwined long after the world has stopped turning in circles around them, and Karen’s pulse is quick against his wrist.

They walk, and spend half an hour or more talking about the universe and setting the world to rights; Matt knows he is drunk, knows this is why the conversation flows and meanders like their unsteady footsteps, but he thinks he isn’t too drunk to know what is doing; he’s avoiding  _something_  with all these expansive statements and sweeping hand gestures and loud, long, laughs. Karen laughs with him, and maybe she’s less aware of herself that he is, because she’s sort of…charged with  _something_ in a way she never usually lets herself be. That’s there in the way her fingers dance along his skin when she slings an arm around his shoulders for support. It’s there in the sound of her laughter, breathy and hitching and ridiculously gorgeous to listen too, It’s there in her eyes, wide and deep and staring into his blush.

Matt doesn’t know why he doesn’t act; he isn’t drunk enough yet to damn all consequences to hell, but it’s not like he thinks Karen is  _only_  drunk. Of course she’s less inhibited, more free with the actions and reactions she so carefully guards, but that’s not the only reason for the existence of the  _something_ , That’s been there for almost as long as he’s known her – sometimes, in a sentimental moment, Matt feels like he knew the  _something_  was coming before he knew Karen, imagines he felt it ripple back to him in the days and weeks leading up to her audition, likes to think he had a  _reason_  for going to his first-ever meeting with Steven and Beth and Piers in the first place. The’ve never talked about it, though, never acknowledged its reality. At first, it was self-preservation, denial, professionalism; now, he’s not so sure, feels the reasons for  _why we shouldn’t_ slipping away almost as quickly as the reasons  _why we should_ keep piling in. Still, this transition, from best friends to  _something  –_ it’s hard, harder than Matt thinks it should be, certainly much harder than anything like this has ever been with anyone else.

Why doesn’t that surprise him? Because it’s her, she’s  _Karen_  , and nothing was ever going to be simple.

Maybe that’s why he lets another moment pass; maybe that’s why he chooses not to remark on her not-so-subtle touches (her leg, dangerously close to his), her half-giggled hints and whispers (he thinks this is the first time in about a decade he’s heard someone seriously suggest they play  _truth or dare_ ), her provocative innocence (she  _knows_  he lives to see her dance, surely she must know the effect she has on him).

Whatever the reasons for his apathy, Matt  _knows_  they’re not enough; knows they’re just excuses; knows he should have jumped, and forgotten his fear of falling once and for all.

_-x-_

When they eventually find their way back into the dimly-lit room that’s heavy with smoke and sweat, the _something_  has gone, but Matt doesn’t think it’s been replaced by  _nothing_. Not yet.

Until he can’t find her, and then he can, and she’s curled up in a sofa in the corner, and so is Jem. In fact – and there’s a sort of roaring in Matt’s ears as he contemplates the scene – they’re sort of curled up into each other, shoulders bumping and feet brushing and heads too close to be considered polite.

_Karen, where are you?? I’m over by the bar._

He sends the text without letting his eyes drift away from the backs of their heads. He sees Karen open her purse, sees her pick up her phone, sees her read something.

Sees her toss the phone back in her bag„ sees her grab Jem’s hand and lead him outside.

The roaring in his ears has become a tide of waves that seem to reverberate and crash into Matt’s heart. He follows them half-blindly, keeping a safe distance but  _needing_ to keep Karen in sight at all times. Then he’s stopped by one of the Spanish assistants to the director – Rob or Robbo or Roberto or whatever-the-fuck his name was, god, he thinks he might be more than bit drunk now – and somehow, Matt finds himself embroiled in a ten minute discussion about the merits of cheese and onion crisps, which Rob (Robbo?) has never tried. Promising Roberto (Rob?) to mail him a whole box of the bastards when he gets home, Matt finally disentangles himself with a hug, and staggers outside.

She’s kissing him.

Karen has her back pressed up against the railing that fences off the edge of the terrace, and Jem’s arms are circling her waist, and one of her hands –  _shit_ – one of her hands is grabbing at the waistband of his jeans. Her eyes, he thinks, are shut against the world, and, thank god, Jem is facing the other way; Matt tries to force himself to look away, to  _walk_  away, but he find himself still frozen in place two minutes later.

Then, impossibly, inevitably, Karen’s eyes are open and staring at him, and he can’t look away then, either. His lips form a wordless, soundless, protest – more of a breath than a question – but she narrows her eyes defensively, aggressively, and he knows she isn’t in the wrong, not really.

Jem’s lips have left hers, which Matt might think is a blessing, except now they’re trailing along her jaw and neck while his hands skim over her sides, and Matt feels a fresh pain so real it might as well have been imagined. Karen closes her eyes again, and her lips –  _fuck_ , her lips, pink and plump and shining – part slightly in a breathed-out moan. It’s as obvious a dismissal as he is likely to get; Matt thinks he can’t stand another second of this, and turns abruptly on his heel to hurry along the arcade.

Just minutes ago, there were two of them here, dancing around each other like they always do, laughing and talking and sharing the  _wonder_  of each other under the starry, cloudless endlessness of the sky at night in Almeria. How quickly the  _something_ dissipated, vanished, drifted away; how stupid they have been to let it go, neglected and mistreated and ignored it; how utterly and completely useless his thoughts of  _why we should_  seem, now.

_-x-_

They spend the last day on set in clouds of resentment and mutual silence, walls of anger and frustration which Matt refuses to break even at lunch, and which Karen seems unwilling to unsettle. The talk all day, of course, is of the Great Spanish Romance, and by the end of the day Matt has heard from far too many people how Karen and Jem shared a cab after the club kicked the last stragglers out at three in the morning, how they spent the hours up to then wrapped around each other on the dance floor, how Karen was  _almost definitely_  wearing yesterday’s skirt and an unironed men’s shirt when she arrived this morning, except no one was sure because she hid away in her trailer to get into costume as soon as she could.

Frustratingly, it’s  _Matt_ who people come to for gossip, or for confirmation of the rumours. Well, and why not? He is her best friend after all, everyone knows that. Arthur is the only one who abstains from mentioning Jem or even Karen around Matt, and for this Matt is unspeakably grateful; less gratifying are Arthur’s knowing looks, his pointed stares and badly-hidden smirks, whenever Matt sinks into a  moody silence, his eyes ostensibly unfocused and drifting along the desert horizon, but actually fixed on Karen’s every move.

Neither of the two men mention it, though; they talk about  _Doctor Who_ , and Arthur’s plans for the future, and Matt’s hopes for the Premier League this year. The whole day is filled with this well-meant emptiness, and on more than one occasion Matt thinks how much he misses Karen. That’s ridiculous, of course, she’s right over  _there_ , it’s not like there’s anything stopping him from going over to her and striking up a friendly conversation about the weather…But. He just. Can’t.

Not yet, not right now, not when today’s routine is so painfully identical and so vastly different from the one they had two days ago, not when everyone around them is watching Karen hopefully for any signs of talking to or thinking of Jem… _Especially_ not when Jem himself is still around, keeping a casual distance but very much on everyone’s radar. Until today, Matt thought he was a better man that this, thought he would never be one to hold a grudge, thought he would never hold a one-night stand against someone; he was wrong, because this is  _Karen_ , and it  _hurts_.

_-x-_

He calls Tessa the moment he gets to his London flat; she left him a message nearly three weeks ago, letting him know when she’d be in town, and  Before Spain he’d had every intention of never returning the call.

Before Spain, Matt had thought things would be…strange… with Karen if he was suddenly seen out for dinner with Tessa; hell,   _During_ Spain, Matt had even thought they might by now have gotten to the point where they’d be having dinner – in the most clichéd sense of the phrase –  _together_ ,

Now, it’s After Spain, though, and everything’s changed because precisely nothing has.

Tessa meets him in town – thank god, he doesn’t think he could stomach picking her up from the flat that was once theirs – and they greet each other with a hug and a kiss on each cheek. She smells faintly of vanilla, and his hand still fits itself around her waist; it’s a smell, and a shape, that feels safely familiar to him, and for a while Matt thinks they maybe should give this – whatever  _this_  has become – another chance.

By the time they’re waiting for their puddings, though, he knows how much they bore each other. Sure, they fill each silence with chat and anecdotes and questions about each others’ lives… But the silence is still there, is still palpable between them, and when the cheque’s paid both of them know they won’t be going on to another bar.

They say goodbye outside the tube station with a soft, wistful, kiss, and Matt no longer finds the scent of vanilla familiar; it’s alien to him, and for a moment when their lips meet and his eyes flutter shut, Matt expects to smell oranges and dust, and the soft heat of a desert spring.

_-x-_

It’s seven thirty in the morning when Karen opens her door before he can knock a second time, and Matt kisses her. She’s barefoot, the jogging bottoms she wears as pyjamas trailing slightly on her heel, and her halter top rises up over bare skin when Matt’s hands seek her waist, and  _god_ she is sexy. She manages to stumble backwards into the flat, just, and Matt kicks the door shut behind him, and then her fingers are in his hair and one of her legs is pressed between his, and Matt just holds on to her. He just holds on to her, his hands burning hot against the naked smoothness of her stomach and her hips, his fingers painting patters over her skin that promise in that instant to never let her almost slip away again.

_-x-_

_Why now,_ she breathes into his ear later, when they’re tangled together in a mess of half-discarded clothes and clutching limbs and bright, hot, kisses on the sofa, and Matt thinks it’s a fair question.

It’s not one he wants to answer, though; if he can help it, he will never say Jem’s name again, let alone when he’s with Karen. He needs to erase the last three days not only from his mind, but from hers, too; needs to wipe clean their shared history because it doesn’t belong to Jem, or to Tessa, it belongs to _them_ , and should only ever be about them. The two of them, here on this sofa, in the flat, on this March morning; everything else, Matt decides, is irrelevant.

He kisses the memory of Jem from her lips, and the smell of heat and dust hasn’t quite left her hair yet; she clings on to him stone cold sober, and the taste of oranges on her skin burns out the lingering uncertainty of vanilla. 


End file.
